Peacemaking in Sobornost’: The Experience of the Russian People in the Great Patriotic War and the World Peace or Common Deed International Relations with the Principle of Equal Economic Security in the 21st Century
Almanac: Globalistics and Globalization StudiesCurrent and Future Trends in the Big History Perspective
The Great Patriotic War (1941–1945) was the major event in the Russian history and the victory in this war was truly one Victory for all spiritual saving Victory, in which the peoples of the Soviet Union, united by Russian people, in the peacemaking feat saved humanness in humankind as well as the world from fascist aggressor. For the sake of Life on Earth, in the peacemaking Sobornost’, as spiritual continuity of one Victory for all, we follow along the Road of life in All-humankind, opened in the righteous deed of our Fathers and Grandfathers.
Keywords: One Victory for All, Vsechelovechestvo – All-humankind, Righteous deed, Bezzavetny (selfless, without seeking reward) Saving Feat, Sobornost’.
Evgeny V. Melokumov, The Moscow Society of Naturalists more
Millions and millions of peoples gave their lives and souls in the common deed of peacemaking deed for this Victory in all humankind, putting an end to World War II; the Soviet people took the hardest blow of fascism and endured suffering in the greatest struggle for the sake of life on Earth – and their victory with the support of other peoples of the world laid spiritual foundations for a new peacemaking thinking in culture and economic life, the peacemaking culture of lifesaving, and thereby liberating from war and its threats the world and coming generations.
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The spiritual unity in freedom, known in the Russian tradition as Sobornost', at the wartime meant Brotherhood and Peacemaking with all and for all in a whole-hearted and selfless saving feat for the sake of life. Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God, we know from the Gospel. During World War II, sons and daughters of men saved humanness in the humankind. With this spiritual experience, we come to realize that by following both non-religious and non-secular ethically non-neutral thinking we can save humanness in ourselves, living together as sons and daughters of men, or brothers and sisters in All-humankind (from the Russian Всечеловечество ‘Vsechelovechestvo’). This is in uniting brotherhood and humanness. And we recognize that only with an understanding of human spiritual experience in the past war and our victory in it as spiritual and saving Victory, we become capable of ethically non-neutral resurrection (as opposed to sacrificial) thinking. So we are enabled to overcome the axiological valuing of the world and life (and that implied pricing of it), and open ourselves to this ethically non-neutral reality of the world and life – as we see with eyes of soul – which is beyond valuation. We free ourselves from that unspiritual in the means by which the world is given an ‘inherently devaluing’ estimate and from all that makes life be substituted for (or psychologically confined to) some metaphysical ‘value’, or so-called ‘price of life’ (what happens when dominance over people, nations and world become a goal, as it was the case with fascists).
No pain is alien. A human being is the one who would weep over not one’s own pain but the pain of the other (Kozhukhova 1973). For truth as for life and soul there is no price – they are beyond measure, beyond valuation, not to be priced. Following the Russian spiritual tradition in all-humankind expressed by Dostoevsky, Solovyov, Tolstoy, and Fedorov as well as by many twentieth-century's authors and thinkers involved in the struggle against fascism (which is considered dehumanization in trying to ‘manage death’ or ‘machine of death’), we currently realize a necessity of the common and non-formal ‘world peace’ common deed that, in the continuation of what was done by our fathers and grandfathers, would unite the humankind on the grounds other than mere a declaration of non-violence against the other, by avoiding underlying ‘game of interests’ in international relations and everything which might be considered such a game, now that not treating the world as an object of property. The reflection on the possibility of such a common deed has to do with the observations of how we formulate our tasks in informal spiritual metaphors. In this reflection of one for all truth and in relation was done by our people in the saving feat that history never seen before, Russian people say: our Victory is one for all – for peoples in the world and for the sake of life on Earth. And, with the feeling of life that was saved in suffering, the feeling which dwells in the spiritual tradition, we say today: our victory is one for all and for this victory there is just no price meaning that it is beyond evaluation, not to be priced. Our victory was achieved commonly, in all-combined efforts, and without seeking reward – people united to defend life, the very right to breath. This truly common work with accomplishments manifested then in the communist idea, which had brought that great unity of people seeking justness in the world. The heroic group of Richard Sorge in Japan was formed on that very basis of the faith in equality, non-division between people, which was seen then in the idea of communism and socialist state. They were anti-fascists and their communist idea would emphasize, as we now can see, their ethical ideal that they were the sons of men in all-humankind, for they died, giving their lives in Peacemaking Sobornost' – saving humanness in us.
I desire mercy, not sacrifice , this we remember from the Gospel. Does it have any relation to our everyday life? Yes, granted that in ethical non-neutrality we perceive the link between what is supposed to be a knowledge and its spiritual meaning. Following that path along the Road of Life, we realize that in the historical perspective the saving feat that was performed not for reward would free us from that sacrifice thinking linked to ethically neutral axiological theories and views, and that it opens peacemaking or resurrection thinking in which we are free from valuing the world (or viewing it as some ‘potentially realized value’), human being and truth. Thus, by not allowing likening (consciously or unconsciously) the human being to ‘value’ (as being potentially associated with the quantitative measure and inheriting formal characteristics of ethical neutrality), we become free both from being possessed by value (which is the case when we desire to be in possession of it) and free from being possessed by the weapons (weapons race, such thinking, etc.). На правду и цены нет – For truth there is no price, the Russian proverb says, meaning that truth is beyond value, as a metaphor it relates to non-paradoxical truth, one for all and avoiding a paradox, and in that not to be expressed formally. On that way, we realize that the task of saving nature and life on the planet as being the same one with the task of freeing it from armed confrontation in the so-called ‘struggle for resources’ (which is relevant non only to potentially new Arctic region, but otherwhere). In that unfettering, clearing ourselves from a state of being possessed by both axiological (with the psychologically comfortable pricing of everything) and sacrifice thinking, we come to see our one for life and truth uniting us all in peacemaking which implies our common home, one world for all, or peacemaking logos, instead of diminishing or reducing them to whatsoever ‘values’. From practical perspective, it becomes possible to develop new approaches to the technique and technical-related issues in general, while we keep in mind that we must not be possessed by machines and machine-style thinking, as we must not be possessed by any kind of weapon (as possession in the hands of those who desire such possession is always a treat to the world and humanity). Machine-like accumulation associated with the cult of capital, as a sort of weapon, causes plundering of one for all planetary resources, as though trying to guarantee for itself (just as individually one seeks guarantees for oneself). Thus, we need consistent approaches in the international relations with viewing one for all natural world, and with our task of saving nature and life should be viewed as inseparable from another task of liberating ourselves from a ‘game of goals and interests’, which leads to alienation of both nature and civilization (or separation between nature and so-called “civilization”); – and for the sake of our civilization we cognize the civilization in our ‘We’ , which is with all and for all, as the tradition says, in All-humankind.
The basic principle of equal security as undivided and available for all must be associated in its ethical non-neutrality with the lack of striving for guaranteed security, thus avoiding a search for “redemption” (from a sort of “guarantor”) and this inner seeking reward, which lie behind that twofold sacrificial and axiological value-and-price-thinking.
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It is necessary to make some philosophic parallels and certain comparisons with regard to the Western moral philosophy, especially to the views of Immanuel Kant on moral subjects, where some ‘highest purpose of nature’ is considered to “be fulfilled in a society”, in ‘the course of a developing mankind’. The question arises how we understand now this idea of a ‘rational community in practical realm’ which is not undermined.
Our spiritual experience teaches us that if culture is a “natural constraint that forces people to act morally”, then we have to comprehend that culture necessarily involving nature and economy, or hozyastvo (from the Russian хозяйство) in some general and at the same time definite sense. To act morally would mean not to act at the expense of that nature as though being ‘hosts of nature’, i.e. not exalting yourself above nature, with eyes not raised haughtily above it. This also means not to look haughtily – not being raised in oneself (as in self-love) looking down on nature (and as if considering oneself a “host” of it) – that is not to seek dominance over other people and nations and not being arrogant in one's heart over people and their nature. And this observation of spiritual nature can be applied to the history of the WWII when a nation or a group of nations desired to establish dominance in the world by viewing others as slaves. Human history showed how and in what such desires inevitably end. And yet it needs to be mentioned as far as the history of thought is observed (at its origins and historical development) that a formal application of not even Nietzsche’s philosophic morale with his ‘will to power’, which inherits valuation principle in “revaluating” of what, in his opinion, “lost value”, but even Kantian moral imperative and his seeking of peace, if applied formally, in a manner it was formulated, cannot exclude, taken as grounds for such ‘justified morality’, the unleashing of war that the world had actually experienced. (Later it was not denied, but indirectly confirmed in Heidegger's philosophy and his attitude to the matter, showing that cause of fascism also may be found in that philosophical way of thinking and that sort of moralization). The task, which is formulated in the works, including in Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View and Perpetual Peace, deals with the problem of spreading justice among people as compatible with mastership or the ‘domination’ of some over the others. ‘The highest master should be just in himself, and yet a man’, Kant says, with a search for ‘a correct conception of a possible constitution, great experience gained in many paths of life, and – far beyond these – a good will ready to accept such a constitution’, and stressing in the end of the sixth thesis of his universal history that ‘three such things are very hard, and if they are ever to be found together, it will be very late and after many vain attempts.’[1] – In relation to that, from the twentieth-century history we know that simple people in the struggle against that very striving for dominance made human history and saved the world being the creators of the new world in giving their lives for the other. Having been taught by both nature and history, we now are enabled to envision that a conception of such constitution with a prevailing formal search for peace would be misleading and even counterproductive, as under that possible scenario there inevitably would be made ‘mastered’ attempts to act under the guise of ‘good will’, view the others as victims, and even to prove in the eyes of that ‘just highest master’ these acts as being of ‘highest possible justice’, while in the ‘ulterior purpose’ they seek to justify their own mastership. Any formalized and centralized ‘moral decision’ of that sort gives an opportunity for that higher master to ‘play his game’, as Kant says in his preface to Perpetual Peace about academicians, apart from what a nature can require from us informally (just as lifesaving decision is never formal) when a non-standard life situation in real life arises. – Human being is not be measured, the living is beyond compare and measure. So it stands apart from humanness (in this as if unconscious state of negligence) not to recognize that the other side of the coin, which forces to turn life into a game, is a pricing of it as ‘price of life’, so that so-called ‘human victims’ are somehow hiddenly allowed, made somewhat ‘justified’. With that, we have to treat above-mentioned ‘good will’ informally as good free will in benevolence realized with all and for-all so as to be able to pursue not formal justice which is definitely incompatible with a sort of ‘mastership’ statement, like saying (allowing saying on behalf of all) that ‘everyone wishes to be a master.’ [2] Meanwhile, the history of the United Nations Organization, with many positive achievements in the post-war period shows certain limitations of such approach based on governmental ‘mastership’ as dominative principle to functioning of such possible ‘league of nations’. New ethical principles are vital for developing both effective and fair approaches in international relations as combining both governmental and nongovernmental ways, which include communities of the common work, with forthcoming non-capitalized, life-saving consciousness, while facing a variety of problems, including food and medical security. It is nowadays somewhere in the world, that people still die from hunger, children die of starvation and hunger, but at the same time a lot of food is wasted in the other parts of the world. So we vitally need to look into the perspectives of the world economy in its true integrity, while accounting for interdependence, and both ecologically and economically combining both efficiency and justness. For we know that both efficient and justful can only be that which is not at the other’s expense – and that realized sincerely and with human dignity, not formally.
Some conclusions should be made in connection with the above observations and so- called ‘laws of nature’ as essentially informal in their ethical non-neutrality. Firstly, we should examine the categorical imperative, which views a human to be the ‘highest value’ and having autonomous self-legislation and will, with regard to its ‘sensitivity’ to victim or sacrifice thinking. If a person, acting under such a ‘universal maxim’, considers humanity in such a way which allows him to see the other person as a possible ‘victim’ and under some circumstances names the other as ‘a victim of war’, he should be able to apply the same reasoning to himself and also view himself as a possible victim. But this can hardly be the case since no one ever wants to become a victim or to be called like that, and essentially there is no such value, nor such price – just as the soul is beyond price – which could be given or that one would give himself for his own life (but in the eyes of those who are ready to pay, seeing a possible victim, there is always such a ‘price of life’, and as a result of that ‘payment’ others are turned into ‘victims’). So one may suppose that such a possible universal law of nature must imply that humankind itself may not be victimized under the guise of any possible ‘good intentions’ – and Kant appears to perceive humanity in that way, when he says that a person should be never considered ‘simply as a means but always at the same time as an end.’ And, historically, when following the idea of humanness and humankind, firstly, we do not want to be de-humanized[3] (while not seeing in this a formal duty), and that is the feeling of compassion and a sense of brotherhood. We inevitably come to the statement that humanity, that is not sacrificed (not capable of being turned into a ‘potential sacrifice’), can only be saved in all-humankind[4], where there is no division into ‘predators and victims’, and where a reasonable person regards neither himself nor the others as a potential “sacrifice”.[5] – Secondly, with that in view, we come to the understanding of brotherhood and common deed in the Russian tradition, as expressed by Nikolay Fedorov who finds this needed spiritual metaphor, speaking about <<with all and for all>>, <<with all the living and for all the living>> as neither egoism (which may be seen in categorical imperative) nor altruism in human behavior (Fyodorov 1995). And this spiritual metaphor might be considered as such an ethically non-neutral ‘universal’ – with viewing all-humankind, where brotherhood and humanness are united and saved. Thirdly, with respect to the moral imperative, the question always arises as how to act in accordance with that moral obligation or what gives a feeling of such an obligation as both spiritual and material one. According to the Russian spiritual tradition, in which we search for an answer, there is a duality, that twofoldness, which should be revealed in the so-called ‘love for money’ as the ‘root for all evil’, according to St. Paul (and really this is not love, but greed for the monetized which acts under guise of “love”[6]), on the one hand, and so-called lubonachalie (greed for power) as a desire (temptation) to master others and control others' consciousness, on the other. Taking that into consideration, we come to the formulation of the golden rule of ethics in such a form which informally sees that ‘law’ of nature in that ‘duality of passions’: Earth is our common house, in which we do not act at the expense of the others (whatever happens to any other person happens to ourselves) and whatever happens to all of us in all-humankind happens to the whole nature. This gives us intuition and feeling to see the whole nature in human being and his nature, or to view the human nature and the nature of the world around us like the natures referred to in divine Christian theology: naturis inconfuse, immutabiliter, indivise, inseperabiliter, which are inconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly and inseparably present. The vision of common duty and debt, as what every person owes with true responsibility before all for all and for everything, that conscious guilt and ability to suffer for all people, expressed in The Karamazov Brothers and other works, becomes necessary on the way to see responsibility and duty that we all have – that all we owe to our nature in all-humankind. That seeking no reward, but with the fullness of life and spiritual joy living on Earth. – From the point of view of the ‘law of nature’, the duty and debt that we owe to nature would result in doing not at the expense of nature, but, not alienating her, thanks to Nature, with this immeasurable feeling of gratitude to it, which means doing not at the expense of the other – and that is with all and for all. And this is performed in all-humankind when we do not seek for guarantees of a secured position and not buying sort of tickets guaranteeing oneself at the expense of the other, while knowing that human sufferings cannot be atoned. Feodor Dostoyevsky in words of Ivan Karamazov firmly stands on the point that sufferings cannot be atoned, with refusal to buy a ticket to ‘highest harmony’ as a sort of ‘highest value’, which is certainly understood not apart from not doing at the expense of the other, thereby clearly showing, in the truth of life, that so-called price of the suffering cannot atone that suffering. As there is not such a price, there could not be… In the developing history of mankind we get rid of ransom-and-sacrifice thinking, of so-called ‘price of life’ – so that we come to open – doing naturally and consciously – true lifesaving in resurrection thinking.
While there is still time, I hasten to defend myself, and therefore I renounce the higher harmony altogether. It's not worth one little tear of even that one tortured child who beat herself on the breast with her little fist and prayed in a stinking outhouse, with her unredeemed tears to 'dear, kind God'! Not worth it, because her tears remained unredeemed. They must be redeemed, otherwise there can be no harmony <...> I don't want harmony. From love for humanity I don't want it. I want to remain with the unrequited suffering. I would rather remain with my unrequited suffering and unquenched indignation, even if I were wrong. Besides, too highly harmony has been priced; it's beyond our means to pay so much for entering. And therefore I hasten to give back my entrance ticket. And indeed, if only an honest man, I am bound to give it back as far ahead of time as possible. And this I am doing. It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, I merely most respectfully return him the ticket.
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From the experience of war and peace in the twentieth century we know that to the saving victory people come in the common deed and without seeking reward – then there was bezzavetniy (from the Russian беззаветный ‘self-less’,’whole-hearted’) saving feat. Also, that there can be only one security, one for all (so that nobody is alienated), in other words, security cannot be treated as ‘guaranteed’. During the war the principle of justice manifested in the labor of the common deed and peacemaking with all and for all defeated fascist's killing machine (and defeated its old motto ‘suum cuique’, ‘to each his own’). And such are ethically non-neutral, spiritual grounds that we cannot think of the Earth as divided among individuals – any like attempt does but already represent some intention to divide the planet, viewing it as an object of property. We cannot – and that is a characteristic of ethically non-neutral science that does not allow itself to be non-spiritual – even mentally we cannot divide what cannot be divided and may not to be subjected to a buy-sell. Likewise we cannot rely on ‘guarantees’ as well as on ‘balance of interests and weapons’. Even in so-called ‘pure interests’ (as though allowing politicians to resolve global problems) there is nothing pure, as in admixed greed for power and the monetized.
Saving of life and our planet, historical words then expressed with all devotion and all-human sincerity, granting to us this feeling of viewing ourselves as Earth live beings, both spiritus and humanus, turn out, in our spiritual heritage, to be inseparable from a common task so as to free ourselves from a state of being possessed by weapons and what politicians call ‘interests’, always related to setting out goals.[7] This setting of goals as the process of “counting on” based on some interests means inevitable equaling of to be with ‘to value’, or being valued, and considering life as somewhat thing-like valuable and tired by evaluation to a ‘worth being’; and as if all the living were due to the property of being in value, such counting on that measured ‘being’ as value is psychologically generalized in relation to all that is perceived (already with a measure and price given to everything and all) in the world and life. But in our life and lifesaving, with the true spiritual hope being helpful (as it was, at wartime, together with confidence in the righteous deed) there is no ‘counting on’, hope is not valued (not to be evaluated) – it is the hope and faith without a desire for reward that win. To be spiritual implies human hope but not counting on it which means to be good not at the expense of the others, in such benevolence creating community not divided by ‘friend or foe’ rule. And the principle of equal economic security which turns out to be related to the category of money with its natural comprehension (and invariant representation) as the economic energy of civilization asserts well-being and welfare not at the account of the others, being the gift of mutual gifting and fruits of labor in Sobornost’. And it becomes evident that the view on money as a capital with its alleged ‘accumulation’ implies this very attempt to evaluate everything in life and life itself; so that such ‘capitals’ cannot but ‘shoot with wars.’ And capital (always acting at the expense of alienating other people and nature) aims at depriving people of common deed which is cognized as necessary and needed for saving life and saving the humanness and humankind and our planet. By freeing ourselves from sacrifice and value-price thinking, we relieve the civilization from a religious-like cult of capital as sacrificing life at the cost of alienating or setting price for life and of losing soul. Blessed Peacemakers, drawing fire on themselves for the sake of the others, showed what means Christian <<I desire mercy, not sacrifice>>. And following this spiritual experience of our people, today we may say that our Truth is one for all, the same as our Victory – they cannot be divided, cannot be priced. A human life is priceless and it is beyond evaluation, not to be priced. It is our legacy-dostoyanie (from the Russian достояние) of human life that is beyond evaluation and cannot be estimated – with all our saving humanness and life.
Tens of millions of civilian people were murdered during the World War. The names of many people who died in this great, immeasurable, and saving in saintliness suffering will never be known to us. Many and many were buried in mass graves, common burials. And we say that only in one for all SOBOR of Peacemakers (our all-human unity) nobody is forgotten and nothing is forgotten. – In this realized spiritual communality with all and for all, in reverence and with our prayers, we maintain life memory of all people who died for the sake of Life on Earth. On behalf of all soldiers who died in the severe battle the world never seen before, the Russian poet Alexander Tvardovsky, who during the war worked as a military correspondent, wrote in his poem I was killed near Rzhev (Tvardovsky 2015).
Our all! We were not cunning,
In this sever battle. Having given all,
We left nothing for ourselves…
People of all nationalities united in the struggle against fascism, soldiers and civil people giving their life and soul. Men and women, old people and even children in the righteous deed. Unarmed soldiers, medical sisters, nurses, very often young girls who had just completed secondary school. They did everything to save to save the injured on the fields of war, risking themselves and often giving their life. Among these sacred legendary names we recall Valeriya Gnarovskaya whom soldiers called Swallow (Lastochka). She saved tens of people and gave her life stopping the tank that was going to destroy the tents with wounded soldiers. She was only nineteen years old. Drawing fire on herself to save the others and to save life – the Victory itself became possible by virtue of this drawing fire on themselves for the sake of the others. – We won because we were dying – so people were saying about that wartime. Richard Sorge's group of about 20 people significantly helped the Soviet people and state in 1941 by preventing Japan from joining the war on the main front in World War II. Last words of Richard Gustavovitch Sorge spoken in Japanese in the Japanese prison were the words of devotion to the Red Army, the Soviet state and the international communist movement. Among the brave people who fought against fascism were also female volunteers. Evgeniya Rudneva was one of them: having passed her third-year exams at Moscow State University's Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics, she decided to join women’s air-force regiment and made 645 flights as a navigator. <<Без свободной Родины не может быть свободной науки… Вот разобьем захватчиков и примемся за восстановление астрономии… Without free Motherland, there cannot be free science… As soon as we defeat the invaders we will start recovering astronomy>> , she wrote in a letter from the front, expressing her feeling of duty in our righteous deed – in Russian наше дело правое and hopes to return to peaceful life. At night, on April 9, 1944, a small wooden Pe-2 plane, piloted by Evgeniya together with Praskovia (Pana) Prokopieva, who came to the front from Irkutsk region, was shot down during a flight near Kerch in the Crimea. The brave girls, aged 23 and 24, died in the sky. One of the millions of strugglers in this anti-fascist movement was Fritz Schemenkel, a former soldier in the aggressor's army who became Ivan Ivanovich or Vanya, as his partisan friends called him, and later a hero of the Soviet Union. In Belorussia he was sentenced to death by the occupants and wrote: <<Своему расстрелу я смело иду навстречу, так как умираю за правое дело – I boldly go to meet the execution, as I am dying for the good deed>>. He was only 28 years old. Many many other people died for that common righteous deed. And many of them were young.
Опустите оружие – Lower the weapon, such peacemaking words, on the night of May 2, 1945, had been spoken by the sergeant Ilia Syanov who as a parliamentarian, alone, went to talk with German military grouping, trapped in the tunnels and metro in Berlin (Subbotin 1965). And he took people out of the underground! Life was saved to everybody… Миру – Мир!… Peace to the World!. And it is with recalling these times and our one for all Victory so that the Russian word Мир – Мir in the unity of its two meanings rouses historical and ever blessed sensation of Peace in the World…
The Russian idea of Sobornost' is expressed in our saving and peacemaking with all the living and for all the living. We become free in our unity – that is in all-humankind manifesting in Sobornost', and there is freedom from reducing our life to value, now that we live non-substituting life for valuation and thus freeing our peacemaking logos of truth, that we know from Christian tradition[8]. Fraternitas et humanitas sunt unita in omnibus-hominibus – Brotherhood and humanness are united in all-humankind. And so we open up, spiritually following that Road of life to besieged Leningrad, which did not have precedents in military history – open the Road of Life in humankind – with the peaceful force of truth, which, even when not unarmed, is not possessed by arms and does not allow to play with arms (not putting them at the forefront and not allowing to turn the life into the game). In our one for all Victory in all-humankind, that is together with everybody and for all the peoples, with so great suffering endured to come to it, knowing the unity of peacemaking and brotherhood, Victory that history had never witnessed – and we know that it was also an economic victory[9] – people and peoples in that peacemaking unity of Brotherhood – in Sobornost' relieved the humankind from ethical-neutrality (relieved from a religious-like cult of capital as sacrificing life at the expense of alienating or pricing life and losing soul), laying the foundation for the culture of lifesaving and peacemaking. The principle of equal economic security establishes welfare not at the cost, not at the expense of the others when money-and-wealth is what is being not at the others expense (so that if formally at or from one's ‘own account’, still it does not mean that not at the expense of the others). With such ethically non-neutral economic foundations, seeking realization of life without trying to manage or control consciousness of others – likewise not at the others expense, people from the West and the East, the South and the North – so we are with all the living and for all the living in all-humanity! – we are able to meet and greet blessing each other in blagoraspolojennost: our benevolence with-all-and-for-all; and saving humanness in the peacemaking common deed, we create spiritually and ecologically for the sake of Life on the Planet.
References
Dostoyevsky, F, 1991. The Brothers Karamazov. Moscow: Progress. Original in Russian (Достоевский, Ф. М. Братья Карамазовы. М.: Прогресс).
Fedorov, N. 1995. Philosophy of the common deed. Moscow: Progress. Original in Russian (Федоров, Н. Ф. Философия общего дела в четырех томах. М.: Прогресс).
Kozhuhova, O. 1973. Early Snow. Volgo-Vyatka book publishing house. Original in Russian (Кожухова, О. К. Ранний снег. Волго-Вятское книжное изд-во).
Subbotin, K. G. 1965. How Wars End. Lower the weapon! Roman-Gazeta. Original in Russian (Субботин К.Г. Как кончаются войны. Опустите оружие! Роман-газета).
Tvardovsky, A. 2015. I was killed near Rzhev. Moscow: Klever. Original in Russian (Твардовский, А. А. Я убит подо Ржевом. Клевер).
Additional reading
Berggolts, O. 1976. Leningrad Poem. Moscow: Sovetskiy pisatel. Original in Russian (Берггольц, О. Ф. Стихи и поэмы. М.: Советский писатель).
Bulgakov, S. 2009. Philosophy of Economy. Moscow: Institute of Russian civilization. Original in Russian (Булгаков, С. Н. Философия Хозяйства. М.: Институт русской цивилизации).
Dal, V. 1957. Proverbs of the Russian People. Moscow: Khudizhestvennaya literatura. Original in Russian (Даль, В. Пословицы русского народа. М. Худ. лит.).
Platonov, A. 1986. Spiritualized People, Stories about War. Moscow: Pravda. Original in Russian (Платонов, А. П. Одухотворенные люди. Рассказы о войне. М.: Правда).
Simonov, K. 2019. The Alive and the Dead. Saint Petersburg. Original in Russian (Симонов, К. Г. Живые и мертвые. СПб.).
Tvardovsky, A. 2018. Vassily Terkin. Poems and pieces of poetry. Moscow: Classic literature library. Original in Russian (Твардовский, А. А. Василий Теркин. Стихотворения и поэмы. М.: Библиотека классической литературы).
Voznesensky, N. 1979. About Soviet Money. Moscow: Politizdat. Original in Russian (Вознесенский, Н. А. О советских деньгах. М.: Изд-во полит. Литературы).
Voznesensky, N. 2003. Military Economy of USSR during the Period of the Great Patriotic war. Moscow: Ekonomicheskaya gazeta. Original in Russian (Вознесенский, Н. А. Военная экономика СССР в период Отечественной войны. М.: Экон. Газ).
Tolstoy, L. N.d. War and Peace. Original in Russian (Толстой, Л. Н. Война и мир).
War, People, Victory, Articles and recollections. 1979.4 vols. Moscow: Political literature press. Original in Russian (Война, Народ, Победа. Статьи, Очерки, воспоминания в 4 т. М.: Изд-во политической литературы).
For the sake of life on Earth, Poems and stories. 1975. In 2 vols. Moscow: Sovremennik. Original in Russian (Ради жизни на земле. Стихотворения и рассказы о Великой Отечественной войне в 2 т. М.: Современник).
[1] Cited ‘Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View’, in translation of H.B. Nisbet.
[2] It may be mentioned, that one’s striving for mastership and dominance eliminates the sense for justice, when justice is understood, according to Plato, essentially as to be just (not to seem, but to be just). – And not justice in some remote infinite time and space, but here on Earth (from The Brothers Karamazov of Feodor Dostoevsky in translation of Constance Garnett).
[3] We know from the war history that fascist soldiers fired villages with civilians, mercilessly killing women and children, and when by chance captured several minutes later, to the question, ‘Are you a human or a beast?’, one answered, ‘A soldier.’ A killing machine or a beast in human form is capable of such an answer but not a human – he does not want to see human being and human soul in himself.
[4] Acting consciously, spiritually, we must not allow human being and humanity be sacrificed to machine, nor any cult, nor to whatsoever. – Who consciously goes towards his death for the sake of saving Motherland is not a victim, says a soldier in the novel of Olga Kozhuhova <<Early snow>>.
[5] And ethically non-neutral ‘rational’ thinking in all-humankind cannot be that ‘autonomous’ as was proposed by such a philosophy. If a person does not want to be a victim, he should not allow making ‘victims’ of others (i.e. not allow human sacrifices even as a figure of speech). This negative form of golden rule of ethics with ‘does not want’, such as proposed by Confucius who spoke of humanness also as a duty of non-dehumanization (when a person does not want to be dehumanized, that implies a necessary connection with the others) – really works instead of what is said by former categorical imperative. Interestingly, in western philosophy it was only Hegel, who suggested in his philosophy of religion that victim thinking is opposed to spiritual: victim cannot be spiritual. Here it may be added that to sacrifice is always at the expense of that being sacrificed, with alienation of it. We cannot sacrifice the soul, one cannot sacrifice the soul, but can give life and soul – dare animam suam – not calling this a sacrifice.
[6] This greed for the monetized, so called ‘love for money’ manifests in temptation to secure one’s own living at the others expense. – And that love exists only when it is not for sale, nor anyone is for sale in exchange for it, comes to us as a reminder from Olga Kozhuhova who represents the generation which had gone through the war, and she wrote, already as a writer after it, that there is always something what is rejected by the reader’s reasoning in every authentically truthful book about the war. And that “something” is just the real truth.
[7] It may be observed that interests-related vain goal-setting involves temptation to get one’s living at the others expense (and also a desire to control other people’s consciousness – as in the duality of passions).
[8] As we know that Truth, the logos of truth is not to be priced. And this is unlike an expiation tenet with its “infinitely redemptive” measure implying so-called “price of blood”. – For there is no such price: our lifesaving is not to be priced, it doesn’t seek reward. Likewise, human being and humanity cannot be expiated, but can be saved. We must not allow any cult of capital “resting” on the cult of blood as it values blood in price just as a war prices it. – War drinks blood, as the proverb says. It is in all-humankind that we can hope for the freedom from the “expiatory self” (not allowing to “substitute” the soul for a self), and learning how to live in peace with world as a whole, to not be sacrificed. Our resurrective-and-lifesaving ought not to be confused – nor be substituted for – “sacrificial and redemptive” (psychologically tied to reward), as not be admixed with axiological value-and-price thinking. – Нет ценности супротив любви – No value is there versus love, the Russian proverb says.
[9] The spiritual, ethically non-neutral idea of money as the economic energy of civilization (not capital, not that Latin capitus, or a ‘head’, which divides acting at the other’s expense, as if guarantying itself in so-called ‘price of life’, but the economic energy which is conserved and unites people, revealed in the energies of social interaction) was expressed at wartime in words <<Хлеб – в фонд Победы – Bread – for serving our Victory>>, written by Russian peasants. In continuity of the tradition, together with Russian proverbs and sayings, <<Ценившим сребро не в хлебы и труд не в пост – For those who value silver not for bread, the labor is nor for fast>>, as well as <<Деньги не голова, а дело наживное – Money is not a head, but a deed in realization of life>>, and <<Хлеб всему голова – Bread is the head for everything>> it now forms our ecological money metaphor, helping to decapitalize money, as ethically non-neutral, ecological (as it doesn’t smell, being non-capitalized, without accrued interest, not at the expense of nature, nor future generations). – So for all the living to be under the aegis of ecological money, leveling all inequalities, which is like the bread that feeds, such one for all “guarantee”: clean money being the economic energy of civilization.